Sex and Violence on Television: Negative Effects Essay

Irving Kristol, in his essay “Sex, Violence, and Videotape,” begins by making a valid point with regard to liberal naiveté. As liberals’ fear of limits on expression is without caveat, it is legitimate to point out that this fear has its roots in an age in which freedom of expression was a notion. Since its conception, it has been seen and noted by professionals like Professor Elizabeth Newson, mentioned in the first paragraph of the essay, that expression without limits has its consequences, therefore warranting common-sense, law enforced restrictions.

Kristol, unfortunately, fails to identify what he means by the following terms: liberal, violence-rich, and abuse (640). What kind of violence was recorded by Newson as abusive to children in videotapes? What are the results of the abuse? To what extent are the professor and his team a group of liberals? Why is the term used at all? What is its significance here? The reader is left to pull definitions of these terms from common societal denotation, and therefore is left at a disadvantage when attempting to grasp the full rationale Kristol is employing. Even more baffling is the fact that Kristol does not cite the study done by Newson in length when refuting the point—a point that he concedes is true—that there is no definitive causal link between television violence and violence in the young (641). Though it is responsible of him to mention the realities of the opposition’s argument, it is incredibly irresponsible of him to leave key terms undefined before venturing more deeply into the context of the issue, and stupefying that he does not reveal the technicalities of the study Newson conducted, especially since he quotes it in his introduction, using it as a starting point from which to discuss the topic of reasonable censorship.

Kristol continues to blur the lines of his own argument when he quotes another professor, Brandon Centerwall, who makes another unsubstantiated claim that “there would be today 10,000 fewer homicides each year in the United States, 70,000 fewer rapes, and 700,000 fewer injurious assaults” if television had never been invented (641). This is irresponsible in the highest order because the author pointed out himself that there is no quantifiable relationship between violence on television and violence in people, not to mention the fact that the above quote attributes those rapes, murders, and assaults to television itself—not the violence it portrays. These oversights when attempting to construct an argument are unforgivable, and make his entire stance shaky.

In “The Myth of Television Depravity,” Michael Hirschorn is guilty of some of the same oversights. He begins his essay by informing the reader of a New York time poll that surveyed people of whom 21% said that television violence was responsible for physically violent teenagers (643). Right away, he fails to explain just what he means by violence on television, and in teenagers. The rest of his article deals with some primetime television shows of about a decade ago that truly did deal with middle-class issues with regard to family and personal relationships—television shows that he uses to refute the claim that primetime should be declared a sex-and-violence free zone by explaining them as relatively benign in these areas already. Considering that the reader is not clear throughout the article about what exactly is meant by violence as it is termed in the poll Hirschorn uses to begin his work, the television show plotlines that he references as contrary to the assertion of those polled lacks well defined contrast. This essay is also, therefore, irresponsibly written.

Mike Oppenheim saves the day with his article “TV Isn’t Violent Enough,” making his meaning well understood within the first couple of paragraphs and therefore setting up the reader to understand with great success his intelligent, medically-based position on violence as it is portrayed on television. The kind of violence on television he is referring to is defined in the beginning of his essay. Oppenheim uses the example of “the traditional badge of the honorable but harmless wound: a sling” to show how ridiculous it is to portray a gunshot to the shoulder as something minor that can easily be recovered from (646). He outlines for the reader all of the different consequences of such a wound, explaining its victim “could bleed to death on the spot,” suffer paralysis in the arm for life, or be subject to debilitating arthritis for the rest of his days. In defining the kind of violence he is referring to, Oppenheim also makes his position clear: The problem with violence on television is that it renders violence clean, practical, and without major complication. Oppenheim uses examples throughout the rest of his work of falsified television violence to provide the reader with the realities of such violence utilizing his medical expertise.

This article is spot-on. The problem with violence on television is that it is portrayed as a viable solution in difficult circumstances. How many times have characters in shows and in movies punched someone lights out, without ever suffering from the “boxer’s fracture” Oppenheim tells his readers of? Violence as it is being referred to here is any physical, aggressive act on the part of one person against another resulting in harm or injury of any kind. These acts are committed by tough characters like Tony Soprano, who always seem to benefit from the use of such acts. These acts present no great difficulty for him. He punches someone in the cheekbone, and suffers no “boxer’s fracture.” He stabs someone, and his victim dies with relative ease in comparison to Oppenheim’s gruesome depiction of what it would take to actually kill someone with a knife. “Several minutes of strenuous work are required to cut enough blood vessels so the victim bleeds to death,” he points out (647).

This same rationale can be applied to the manner in which sex is portrayed on television shows. Entourage is a show that portrays sex in a blindingly naïve light—its main character Vince has sex often and with great ease, he never refers to condom usage or birth control of any kind in his dealings sexually with women, and yet never suffers from any consequences. None of his sexual partners get pregnant or pass to him any sexually transmitted diseases. Again, the gratuitous nature of the portrayal is not the problem, as Oppenheim suggests. It is the absence of realism that is damaging to uninformed viewers. Like advertisers, producers should be required to portray events of violence and sex as realistically as possible—therefore leaving no illusions in the minds of viewers as to the consequences of these behaviors.

Oppenheim’s point gets at the heart of the issue in a way the blind, ideologically based arguments in the first two articles cannot. Approaching the argument from a medical, from a scientific, perspective, Oppenheim is able to communicate to his readers the nature of the issue. Television is a medium that has altered the way people retrieve information, but it allows for great deception. Oppenheim says plainly: “If we’re genuinely interested in protecting our children, we should stop campaigning to ‘clean up’ TV violence. It’s already too antiseptic.”

So long as sex and violence are delivered to viewers as consequence free acts from which great pleasure is derived, and with which problems can be overcome, children will be subject to a deception that will continue to impact them negatively—as deception always does. If Oppenheim’s view, supporting a “truth in violence” approach to both subjects can be applied, the average viewer will be forced to stomach the realities of these behaviors, and will be empowered with accurate information—something that enables quality decisions to be made by individuals everywhere (648).

Works Cited

Hirschorn, Michael. “The Myth of Television Depravity.” A Shepherd’s Guide to Tending Sheep (2008): 643-646.

Kristol, Irving. “Sex, Violence, and Videotape.” A Shepherd’s Guide to Tending Sheep (2008): 640-643.

Oppenheim, Michael. “TV Isn’t Violent Enough.” A Shepherd’s Guide to Tending Sheep (2008): 646-648.